Early Review: Of Flame and Promise by Cecy Robson

Cursed by a spell meant
to destroy them, Taran Wird and her sisters instead developed unique
magical talents. With the power of fire and lightning literally at her
fingertips, Taran doesn’t fear much. Demons, vamps, whatever—bring ’em
on! Only one thing terrifies her: commitment.

Taran is crazy
about her boyfriend, Gemini, a sexy were with the incredible ability to
split into two separate wolves. But after watching her sister go through
heartbreak with the pack’s Alpha, Taran knows not to count on happily
ever after—despite Gemini’s desire to claim her as his mate.
Reluctantly, she agrees to meet his very traditional and conservative
parents. Taran’s a badass with a mouth to match, and Gemini loves her
for it. She’s just not positive these attributes will please Mom and
Dad.

Unsurprisingly, every attempt by Taran to bond with Gemini’s
folks proves disastrous. But in the end, Taran finds that winning them
over means unleashing her powers . . . and proving that this
foul-mouthed fire-starter is a force to be reckoned with.

We have followed all the Weird sisters since SEALED WITH A CURSE from Celia's POV and mind, it's time to see how Taran's mind works. Don't be fooled by the fact that OF FLAME AND PROMISE says it's #6 in the Weird Girls series. This is a novella, not a full size novel.

I want to start out my review by stating that I really hate going backwards in a series.The events in OF FLAME AND PROMISE take place right after the events of book 2, A CURSED EMBRACE, just from Taran's POV and with events in her life instead of Celia's. Now having said that, OF FLAME AND PROMISE manages to make the going back as painless as possible and pulls off a pretty great story.

There were plenty of laughs and a bit of tears from the first chapter to the last. I enjoyed diving more into Taran and Gemini's relationship. Taran fumbles a lot in OF FLAME AND PROMISE, but Gemini remains by her side through it all. I had no problems staying in the story and I am actually looking forward to being in Taran's head again. I do however hope we don't continue to stay in the past. I would like to see how things are going after the events of book 5, A CURSE UNBROKEN.

I gave it 4/5 stars

* This book was provided free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

2 comments:

Hi. You bring up some very good points. My main reason for writing this story in the past was to give readers an idea of Taran and Gemini's relationship before their relationship veered off course and to hopefully help them understand what it took for Taran to give herself completely to him. When I first created the Weird Girls, I intended to tell their journey only through Celia's perspective. But then I thought it would be fun to write novellas from different POVs. So I wrote one for Taran, Bren, and Emme for a possible "Weird" anthology. All were about 10k words in length at the time. Now, all this occurred pre-book deal. I never realized how popular the other sisters would become and how much readers would want to read stories through their perspectives. So when I was contracted to tell Taran's story, I took the original novella and made it a 50k word short novel for publication. The novels to follow will proceed where A Curse Unbroken left off. But as I mentioned, I had give readers a taste of Taran's relationship with Gemini. Thank you for taking the time to read, review, and feature OF FLAME AND PROMISE. I'm very happy you enjoyed the story.